"We've gone high-tech this year," Dutton said, communicating through texting and walkie-talkies wildlife sightings to the volunteer manning a big chart in the school's gym. The ongoing list included what had been spotted by guides and visitors at various sites, including Shreve Lake and Wright Marsh.

Just down a path from a location near Shreve Road, where Dutton was monitoring a telescope, a volunteer had seen a double-crested cormorant, a find duly reported back to the school.

Dutton used bird apps -- Audobon Bird and iBird -- on her phone to help visitors get a better grasp of what they hoped to see through a telescope or binoculars.

"Too bad the weather isn't better," said Dutton at about 10 a.m. on Saturday, pointing out the difficulty of seeing "the detail on the birds. You can't see all the colors."

Highlighting the "white stripe and tan spot on the backside" of a green-winged teal on a picture displayed on her phone, a visitor was more easily able to pick out those features on a bird seen through the telescope.

"I'm a spotter," Dutton said, directing visitors back to another spotter set up about one-half mile into the marsh.

"I was on a trip last week through the marsh," she said, noting how birds have been migrating "from week to week," such as some which "took off on a nice southerly wind and headed north (last week)."

"A lot of them are still here, though," she said, scrolling through her bird log sightings of a tundra swan, a gadwall duck, American wigeon and American black duck.

Stepping up to Dutton's station were Terry and Joanne Gorges of Cleveland, who have attended every annual Migration Sensation but one.

They came to Shreve with their own equipment -- camera, binoculars and telescope.

"We belong to a couple of (wildlife-related) organizations," Terry Gorges said, and attend other events similar to Shreve's. "This is a pretty good one here."

By 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, they had already observed a bald eagle, two sandhill cranes and a horned grebe at Shreve Lake.

Visitors of all ages, but particularly children, enjoyed the Force Road "dip netting" station, where they could don hip boots and wade out into the swamp to collect and observe creatures of that habitat.

"(My son) Isaiah caught a fish," said his dad, Jeffrey Styer.

"They just hide in all that brown stuff," Isaiah Styer said, adding, "I caught a tadpole, too, but it escaped."

Wilderness Center naturalist Carrie Elvey scoured a guide book to identify the fish, coming up with "central mud minnow" because of the dark line between its eye and gill.

"It's the one we usually catch here," Elvey said.

OCVN Pat Tirabasso helped another child label "water boatmen," which she said, have "little feathery hindlegs ... and take an air bubble down into the water with (them)," just as if they have their own scuba gear. They feed on what lies in the ooze at the bottom of the lake.

Bruce and Helen Lindsay of Ashville, Ohio, stood on the wooden dock at Shreve Lake.